The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was an outcome of the French Revolution, defining a set of individual rights. It was adopted by the National Constituent Assembly, which was charged with writing a Constitution for monarchic France.
The principles set forth in the declaration come from the philosophical and political principles of the Age of Enlightenment, such as the separation of powers espoused by Montesquieu. Some say it was based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights developed by the George Mason.
According to the preamble of the French constitution, the principles set forth in the Declaration have constitutional value. Many legislations and regulations have been cancelled because they did not comply with the Constitutional Council's or the Conseil d'?at's interpretation of those principles.
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2 English translation 3 French text |
DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN
August 26, 1789
The Representatives of the French People, formed into a National Assembly, considering ignorance, the lapse of memory or contempt of the rights of man to be the sole causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of Governments, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn Declaration, the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man, to the end that this Declaration, constantly present to all members of the body politic, may remind them unceasingly of their rights and their duties; to the end that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive power, since they may be at every moment [continually] compared with the aim of every political institution, may thereby be the more respected; to the end that the demands of the citizens, founded henceforth on simple and incontestable principles, may always be directed toward the maintenance of the Constitution and the happiness of all.
Consequently, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of the man and the citizen.
Article the 1st Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. The social distinctions can be founded only on the common utility.
Article 2 The goal of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of the man. These rights are {personal}freedom [liberty], the {ownership of} property, {personal}safety and resistance [the ability to resist] to oppression.
Article 3 The principle of any sovereignty lies primarily in the nation as a whole. No body nor individual can exert authority which does not emanate from it expressly.
Article 4 Freedom consists in being able to do all that does not harm others. Thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has limits only to the extent of those which ensure that the other members of society obtain the pleasure of these same rights. These limits can be determined only by the law.
Article 5 The law has the right to proscribe the actions harmful of society. All that is not forbidden by the law cannot be prevented, and no one can be constrained to do what the law does not specifically order.
Article 6 The law is the overt expression of the general will. All the citizens have the right to contribute {to the legislative process} personally, or by their representatives, to the formation of law. The law must be the same one for all, either that it protects, or that it punishes. All the citizens being equal in its eyes are also acceptable by all dignitaries, in all places and in all measure of public employment, according to their capacity and without other distinction than that of their virtues and their talents.
Article 7 No man can be indicted, be arrested or detained [in custody] except under those circumstances determined by the law, and according to its forms which are prescribed. Those which solicit, dispatch, carry out or make others carry out arbitrary commands must be punished; but any citizen summoned or seized under the terms of the law must obey immediately: he makes himself guilty by resistance.
Article 8 The law should establish only such strict penalties as are obviously necessary; and, no person can be punished except under the terms of a law established and promulgated before the offence, and which is legally applicable.
Article 9 Every man is supposed innocent until having been declared guilty; {but,} if it be considered essential to arrest, any action, which is not necessary to secure the person, must be severly repressed at law.
Article 10 No person should fear for expressing opinions, even religious ones, provided that the manifestation of their opinion [advocacy] does not disturb the established law and order.
Article 11 The free communication of thought and the opinion is one of the most invaluable rights of the man: any citizen can thus speak, write, print freely, except that he must answer for his abuse this freedom in such cases determined by the law.
Article 12 The guarantee of human rights and of the citizen requires a police force: this force is thus instituted for the advantage of all, and not just for the particular utility of those{officials} to which it is entrusted.
Article 13 For the maintenance of the police force, and for the expenditure of administration, a common contribution{tax} is essential: it must be also distributed between all the citizens, respective of their faculties{to pay such taxes}.
Article 14 All citizens have the right to vote, by themselves or through their representatives, for the need for the public contribution, to agree to it voluntarily, to allow implementation of it, and to determine its appropriation, the {amount of} assessment, its collection and its duration.
Article 15 Society has the right to require an account by any public agent of their administration.
Article 16 Any society in which the guarantee of {human} rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers set forth, has no {legal} constitution.
Article 17 Property{rights} being inviolable and sacred, one cannot lose the private use of property, if there is no public necessity, legally noted, required obviously, and under the condition of a just reimbursment as a predicate {to the taking}. See also
English translation